Hearthstone Open Beta is Here!

Hearthstone Open Beta is Here!

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

The wait is over: The Hearthstone Open Beta Test is now live in North America! If you haven’t had the chance to partake in all of the crazy card-slinging action yet, now is the perfect chance to start casting powerful spells, summon mighty minions and duel your friends in this fast-paced strategy card game that anyone can dive into right away!

It’s been a crazy past few months for all of us on the Hearthstone team. We announced Hearthstone at PAX East back in March, began the Closed Beta Test in August, had a great Hearthstone event at BlizzCon with the Innkeeper’s Invitational along with our announcements for Android and iPhone support, and now we’re ready to unleash the awesomeness of Hearthstone to you with Open Beta!

So what does this mean for you? If you didn’t get the chance to participate in the Hearthstone Closed Beta Test, now is your chance to download the game! Just click here to download Hearthstone, or you can use the Play Free Now button at the top of playhearthstone.com. We have no plans to perform any more wipes of Hearthstone, so feel free to amass your collection and play against your friends!

What if you don’t play in the North American region? Don’t worry; we plan to go to Open Beta for all of the other regions within the next few days as well, so stay tuned for more information!

As open beta is still a beta phase, we will be closely monitoring many aspects of the game to ensure a positive play experience for everyone. Please be aware that if smoke starts curling out of our servers due to unexpectedly high demand to play Hearthstone, we may have to temporarily disable open beta account activations for a time until we’re ready to take on more players.

HearthPwn - Hearthstone Database, Tools, and News
Now that everyone has access to the Hearthstone Beta, now is a good time to remind you about HearthPwn, our sister site for Hearthstone news! You can find much more frequent Hearthstone news updates there, along with the cards database, deck builder, and decks database.

Visual - View both the picture and all the card information in text form. Gives all the information you could need about the card (including if it can be gold).

Images - View every card in picture form (Great for looking at all the art)

Listing - Simply lists the name, and basic stats. Great for quick browsing.

Filters - We have a filter for every class, type, and attribute there is. We also list the set names and more that you will only find on HearthPwn.

Artist Names - The database also has the name of the artist for each and every card.

Card Flavor Text - Many cards have flavor text, such as "Alexstrasza the Life-Binder brings life and hope to everyone. Except Deathwing. And Malygos. And Nekros."

See Decks That Include Your Favorite Cards - Every card page has both a graph showing how many decks hold that card, along with links to every deck that has that card in it. Find a new fun card, and instantly find decks based off it!

Deck BuilderBuild your deck using the current cards available in Hearthstone or browse some great decks by other players!

I'm done with this game and I will not play it again. It's not a fair game.

Here's why:

1. It's pay to win. People who spend more money can get more cards, better cards, more options to build better decks, meanwhile people who don't spend money need to grind for days to get even 1 deck of cards, and the pitiful rate of 1 gold per win. Even the MMR system cannot fix this unfairness at the top of the MMR curve, where high MMR players with bought cards have more than 50% win rate (like SC2). A person with 2000 skill rating + $100 spent is better than a person with 2000 skill rating. It's unfair. People should not be allowed to buy cards with real money.

2. There is no release wipe. It allows people who, by dumb luck, have been in the beta to get an unfair card advantage, for absolutely no reason. Why should beta testers get to keep their account without a wipe, when people who weren't lucky enough to get into the closed beta are systemically and unfairly, of no fault of their owned, denied this advantage of early access? And some of these people are now defending their undeserved entitlement, which they should not get, at the expense of destroying fairness for everyone else.

3. No ladder and ranking system. No plans for ladder and ranking systems.

4. No chat. No social features. No plans for chat, no plans for social features.

5. Flawed reward model that rewards players for tanking their rating and farming noobs by giving these abusers more gold, more quickly.

6. Per-usage microtransaction of $2 to play Arena. This would be as outrageous as Valve charging $2 to queue All Pick in Dota 2. Or if Microsoft charged $2 to make an Office document with no option of buying Microsoft Office. This is arguably the most greedy business model in existence.

What would they need to do to make make me play? Never ever sell any cards or packs. Wipe on release. Add ladders and chat. Sell the game for $60 instead. Or sell only cosmetic microtransactions like Dota 2.

In conclusion, there is no fairness, no equality. Therefore, there is no sense of accomplishment, and hence no point to play. Would anyone bother to compete in the Olympics if drug cheats are allowed? No. So why should I play Hearthstone. The same reasoning applies: if the game is unfair, then accomplishments, like being in Masters, mean nothing because it can be achieved by people using these unfair and undeserved advantages, like buying cards for real money.

The fact that cards can be grinded at a snail's pace changes nothing, because other people who have spent more money still have the advantage of more cards, better cards, more choices, and a easier ability to adapt to a changing metagame, which isn't possible via grinding. In the long run you can get all the cards... eventually. But in the long run, we are all dead. In the meantime, you're playing a stacked and unfair game. More fundamentally, there is no point to grinding in an unfair game in the first place. So why even bother take the first step? Games like WoW Classic, SC2, WC3, and Dota 2, were built on a model of fairness within the game. Everyone pays the same, everyone gets the same access to the game. If you play the game, then how much money you have outside of the game doesn't affect the game. Your real world finances doesn't come into the game as an advantage. In Hearthstone, how much money you spend in real life determines how many cards you have. It's the opposite of fair games where everyone starts perfectly equal like WoW Classic, SC2, WC3 and Dota 2.

The unfairness and inequality of Hearthstone cheapens the game for everyone as accomplishments become meaningless, because people who have bought cards can achieve the same, just like drug cheats in the Olympics. And the fact that there's no ladder and ranking system really does make your accomplishment meaningless because no one knows about them, no one knows you exist. You can't even talk. So the game is meaningless and pointless. And I refuse to play a meaningless and pointless game.

The developers of this game have a pathological aversion to fairness and equality, in favor of more money and a greedy business model. But as proven by the fact that they decided not to wipe on release, it's not just about money. It proves that they believe in unfairness and inequality, fundamentally and as a matter of principle. And it is ultimately for this reason that I will not play this game.